After years of being told about the Up series, I've finally begun to watch. I can't recomend them enough. I am dying to find someone to talk to about them. I am sure someone out there has seen them and it is hard to have watched even one of the 7 films without having something to say. Let me describe the concept, so you know what I am going on about. I think I'll cheat a bit - here is the opening paragraph from the wikipedia page:

The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years (one episode every seven years) and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC. In a 2005 Channel 4 programme, the series topped the list of The 50 Greatest Documentaries.
And for the rest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Series

Here is a short interview with Michael Apted the director:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpFsV489WuY

Well, now that you've had a look, interested?

talk away Saffron as I too am an ardent fan. Can't remember exactly the last one I saw but I believe it was the second to last.

I would have to re-watch them to refresh my memory but I definitely remember the thrust of the development of the lives of the children. One who chose to no longer participate. One who was a lost soul wandering in Scotland. One who emigrated to Australia. An upper class woman. These films are thoroughly engrossing and poignant and meaningful.

I am just at the very end of 42. I've been watching back to back, which has been an interesting experience. It has been like looking at the world that I've know my whole life on fast forward - small black and white tv to flat screen plasma in a space of a day. In each film they review, so actually you could just watch without going back over old films. I have 49 to watch later today and then I will have to wait until May of this year for the release of 56 Up. I was just telling my daughter about the series and as I was telling her I realized what a gift each of the individuals has given by agreeing to continue participating. The set of films has turned into a real up close view of a human life spand.

Just finished with 49 and feel very spent. It is hard not to feel like you kind of know the people in the films and in fact several of them say they feel connected to the others in the film even though they don't really know them, just from sharing the experience and watching them on film. I am not sure how I feel about the film maker, at times I want to dislike him, but am glad he has made the films. His way of asking questions of those that participate in the films from year can sound insensitive. In this last film, 49, Jackie (one of the girls) takes him to task for being too invasive. The films feel especially voyistic whenever Neil is interviewed. He is so clearly in emotional pain at times that it can be very difficult to watch and I would find myself wanting Michael Apted to shut up and leave Neil alone.

A funny observation: At the end of the first film and shown again at the end of each film, is footage of the children altogether playing on a playground. We are told by the narator that it is an "Adventure Playground." By todays standards this playgound would be marked off with yellow caution tape with large warning signs to stay away. The whole thing looks like a contruction sight and the things the children are doing look very dangerous, for example picking up large jagged pieces of wood and pretending to build something or gliding down one of those pully things where you sit on a kind of swing.

Oh yeah, I had not at first recognized the director's name in the thread title, but I'm a big fan of the series, too. I knew that I saw 49 quite a while ago but didn't know when the next one would be coming. In May--thanks, saffron. It's quite an achievement. I guess they call such projects "longitudinal studies" when they involve research. I'd like to watch the seven shows, too, before seeing the new one, as I may be getting pretty long in the tooth, but I'm not quite old enough to have seen "7" when it appeared! Apted does a good job of recycling the old shows into the new ones, though.

saffron, what link are you using to get to the programs?

I've been watching instant play on Netflix. I believe you have Netflix, right? If that will not work for you, this link might do the job:

http://www.alluc.org/documentaries/watc ... 60482.html

For anyone who has watched or even if not, what do you think of the concept/tag line for the Up series:
The Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man", which is based on a quotation by Ignatius Loyola?

I think that you can see hints in the 7 year old kids as to what they will be like as adults, but oddly enough, the two sad children and the one that is very serious end up generally happier then most of the rest.

56 Up will consist of 3 x 1 hour parts, the first of which will premiere on 14 May 2012. I can't wait!

From The Telegraph
Seven Up! Now we are 56
By Rupert Christiansen
8:26PM BST 16 Apr 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... re-56.html

The 'Seven Up!’ documentary series, which began in 1964 and continues next month, is reality television as it ought to be.
From the days of the week to the ages of man, seven is mystically the number that seems to mark the epochs of our lives, and that’s the concept, hardwired into our psyches, that Granada Television tapped into when in 1964 it began commissioning the unique documentary series Seven Up!.


Taking as its primary inspiration the remark attributed to the founder of the Jesuit educational system, Ignatius Loyola, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”, it started by tracking the lives of 14 seven-year-old British children from a wide variety of social and economic backgrounds. Since then, it has reported back on them at seven-year intervals, with each episode cumulatively presenting extracts from previous programmes, dramatising how far the subjects have travelled in the intervening periods

Has anyone been able to see the newest edition of the Up Series, 56? I know that it has shown in the UK, but have not yet figured out how to see it in the USA.

I have finally been able to see bits and pieces of 56 Up. It seems to be trickling in in chuncks rather than access to the whole part 1, 2 & 3. Anyone out there watching? I'd love to find a way to see a whole part rather than 10 minute segments. I know all three parts have now aired in the UK. I hope that means it will soon be released in the USA.

I watched the first few episodes and plan to eventually do the whole series. We canceled NetFlix so my ability to watch went out the window.